Monday, November 18, 2013

Beginning with Freud, therapists have pronounced romantic love the goal of psychosexual development. They have extolled it and declared that
we should all aspire toward it. Being in love has come to be considered the ultimate
in mental health.

And yet, ask yourself this question: what are the four most
frightening words you can hear from a woman?

I would suggest these: “But I’m in love.”

Researchers in the Netherlands and Maryland have recently
discovered that the poets have a better grasp on the truth. They have demonstrated that true love compromises cognitive functioning.

Of course, it all depends on how much you value cognitive
functioning.

For the record, the study looked at people who had just
fallen in love, who were still in the first few months, the honeymoon stage of
a relationship.

The Huffington Post reports the results without too much
commentary, and that feels about right to me.

[Researcher]
Steenbergen analyzed how 43 participants in new relationships (meaning less
than six months) performed specific tasks, including separating relevant and
irrelevant information. His results indicated that "high levels of
passionate love of individuals in the early stage of a romantic relationship
are associated with reduced cognitive control." In other words, participants
were so consumed by thoughts of their beloved, their ability to concentrate and
perform the tasks was diminished.

Steenbergen
says the phenomenon may be attributed to how the brain allocates its limited
resources. "It could be that the obsessive nature of passionate love
imposes important constraints on performing well in tasks that require
self-control." Meaning, if your brain is on overdrive thinking about love,
it's less able to focus on other things.

Passionate love is obsessive and consuming. While
it might not make you clinically insane, it will certainly preoccupy your mind
and distract you from your job.

"Beginning with Freud, therapists have pronounced romantic love the goal of psychosexual development."

That is not true.

First of all, Freud was not a "therapist," and certainly not in the contemporary sense. He was a psychoanalyst.

Second of all, Freud did not advocate that "romantic love" was the "goal of psychosexual development." If anything, Freud was skeptical of so-called "romantic love," and saw it often at great odds with "psychosexual development." If anything, Freud would say that the goal of psychosexual development is precisely that--psychosexual development. End of story. He never said it was ALL leading to "romantic love."